Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

They set out from the depot at Tres Piedras onto a well-maintained road heading southeast through flat scrubland. This would be the easy part of their journey. This road led to some old villages of dilapidated buildings where there could be a few opportunities to buy fresh food or extra water. They settled in with other travelers, keeping to the horse and bike lane on the right so the left would remain clear for wagons and the occasional diesel truck bringing goods to the far-flung areas.

It was a sunny morning, already a little warmer than Robert would have liked, but the delay with Amalia while Sophie’s ankle healed could not have been helped. Now the heat of summer threatened to slow their progress, but once they got into the higher elevations, it would no longer be a problem and they might even find lingering patches of snow.

As was her way, Sophie looked all around, curious about the other travelers but saying little, assessing in the same cool way her mother used to do. Robert tried to imagine the scene as she was seeing it: pueblo-dwellers in colorful blouses, farmers and ranchers in tough denim and broad straw hats, a Spanish boy astride a donkey with chiles hanging off the saddle, and by the side of the road, struggling along on foot, a bedraggled family pulling their worldly goods in hand carts.

At this last, Sophie pulled her horse close to her father’s. “We should give them something.”

Robert frowned at the intrusion into his thoughts. “What do you think they need?”

She gave him a look. “I thought you ran the refugee camps during the civil war.”

“I didn’t run them. I just coordinated the delivery of supplies.”

“But that means you know what poor people need, right?”

He knew very well what they needed: everything. But he also knew it was foolish to give away the things one needed for one’s own survival. They only had enough supplies for three days. Should a horse go lame or if he had trouble finding the trails to Castaño, they could find themselves in trouble. Robert was a poor hunter, and as for finding mountain edibles among the trees and scrub, he’d be more likely to get them poisoned than fed. “It’s a nice thought, honey, but we can’t. We need everything we have for ourselves.”

By now they had passed the straggler family and he considered the matter settled. After giving him a look of utter exasperation, Sophie dropped behind him.

A few minutes later he realized he no longer heard the clopping of her horses’ hooves and he turned around in the saddle. Far behind, he could make out Sophie’s buckskin at the side of the road. His daughter had dismounted and was talking to the stragglers.

“Sophie!”

She turned and waved, said a few more words to the family, then got on Bandera and trotted toward him. Behind her, the family patriarch raised a hand in thanks and Robert returned the gesture politely. But when Sophie had returned to his side, he glared. “What were you doing?”

“I can do whatever I want with my allowance.” She gazed up at him defiantly. “You said so.”

“Well, yes. But I expect you to put it to sensible uses, not give it away to every poor person you see. Get in the habit of doing that and we’ll soon be needing charity, ourselves.”

“It wasn’t much, and I didn’t give them anything that wasn’t completely mine.”

Robert could see from the stubborn set of her jaw that he wasn’t going to get very far arguing with her. Diana had been impulsively generous too and there had been a time when he wondered if hers wasn’t the better way, to give without thought for the consequences. But it wasn’t Robert’s habit to overlook the practical considerations of charity. As a supplier of refugee camps, this was a virtue. Face to face with a hungry family, though, logic was a cold companion.